A visionary leader and accomplished scholar, Vistasp M. Karbhari took office in June 2013 as the eighth president of The University of Texas at Arlington. He is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

As president, he is committed to advancing UT Arlington’s national and international profile while strengthening excellence in research and teaching and ensuring the success of the University’s 33,800 undergraduate and graduate students.

Prior to joining UT Arlington, President Karbhari was provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of Alabama in Huntsville from 2008 to 2013. During that time the university saw an increase in sponsored research expenditures, added more than a dozen academic programs that highlighted academic strengths and met the workforce needs of the community, successfully integrated the divisions of academic and student affairs, enhanced student life, and established a student success center that boosted retention and graduation rates. He also helped raise significant private funds for student scholarships, faculty development, and endowed chairs.

He was a professor at the University of California, San Diego from 1995 to 2008. In addition to his research and teaching commitments at UCSD, he served in several administrative and leadership roles at the department, college, and university levels, including in the Faculty Senate.

A prolific researcher, President Karbhari is an expert in the processing and mechanics of composites, durability of materials, infrastructure rehabilitation, and multi-threat mitigation and has authored or co-authored more than 460 papers in journals and conference proceedings and edited or co-edited four books. He holds one patent and has served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on more than $37 million in research projects.

He is a fellow of ASM International, which serves the materials science and engineering profession, and a fellow of the International Institute for FRP in Construction, which is dedicated to the use of fiber-reinforced polymer composites. He serves as the associate editor of the Journal of Civil Structural Health Monitoring, as the American editor for theInternational Journal of Materials and Product Technology, and as an editorial board member for Composite Structures, the ASTM Journal for Testing and Evaluation, Structural Engineering and Mechanics, and theInternational Journal of Sustainable Materials and Structural Systems.

President Karbhari earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and a master’s degree in structures, both from the University of Poona in India, and a Ph.D. with a dissertation in composite materials from the University of Delaware. During his more than 20 years in higher education, he has received numerous awards for research, teaching, and innovation.